Shore Leave to Hold First Rock-Scissors-Paper-Lizard-Spock Tourny
Rock-Paper-Scissors. Roshambo. Jenkin to the Japanese. Long a tradition for dispute settlement. It even appeared in a 4th Doctor episode where everyone’s favorite timelords play it while kidnapped by super androids. Gamers who’ve used the Mind’s Eye Theater system for their LARPs will be familiar with ‘ol RPS as the ‘dice’ for conflict resolution.
How could the most cooly simple and wonderfully silly game for settling an argument get any better? By making it more complicated.
The delightfully geeky TV show Big Bang Theory turned things up to 11 when one of the characters proposed they add Lizard and Spock gestures to make it more random as everyone involved knew each other too well for anyone to win (spoiler alert: it doesn’t work). Thus was born Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock.
In recognition of this great advance in geek culture, Shore Leave 2012 is having the first ever International Rock-Scissors-Paper-Lizard-Spock Tournament. (Yeah, I know, they’re listing scissors before paper. It’s their logic so don’t troll me over it.)
The tourney will be held the Friday night of the August convention. Exact details, like when, have yet to be announced so you’ll have to keep tabs on their event page.
Shore Leave 34 will be held August 3-5, 2012, at the Hunt Valley Inn in Baltimore, Maryland. And they’ve got Levar Burton (a little Reading Rainbow anyone?) as one of their Guests. Tickets are currently on sale, with an early registration deadline of July.
